This is a bittersweet holiday season. FTW is celebrating its amazing growth thanks to your support and the wonderful hard work and dedication of all our staff, writers and editors. We love all of you and we thank you for loving us.

I can make no promises that things will get better next year, or that this Christmas will signify a new beginning or a new world covenant. Some darknesses do not pass that quickly.

The only thing that FTW can promise you for next year is that we are going to completely reorganize ourselves in full recognition that what we need, and what you want, is better real-time reporting of FTW's unique brand of news, analysis, and mapmaking. We promise you that we will be spending less time on history and more time and money looking at the serious challenges that lie immediately ahead of us.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. What's coming now is the season - however long it may last - of preparation.

This is a good time, for all who have that luxury, to sit quietly for a spell in the winter darkness and reflect. Not until we sit quietly with uncertainty for a while - walking towards our fears rather than wishing ourselves away from them - will we find the stillness and resolve to see a path through darkness rather than around it.

The only way out of the wilderness is through it.

The entire FTW staff wishes all of you and yours a happy and safe holiday season. Know that we'll be looking out harder for all of you next year and that truly, our thoughts are with you.